MPs on an influential Commons select committee said performance on key fire service projects including the setting up of regional control rooms gives "cause for concern".

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Their report comes as new figures seen by the YEP reveal £230,881 has been spent on gas and electricity bills at Yorkshire's new regional control centre at Wakefield's Paragon Business Park, which is standing virtually empty. Taxpayers have also paid £1.67m in rent, maintenance, landscaping, cleaning and security costs.

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The Government is streamlining England's 46 local control rooms into nine centres. In Yorkshire control rooms in Birkenshaw, Sheffield, Hessle near Hull and Northallerton are due to replaced.

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The Wakefield centre was built in 2008 but – amid a catalogue of technical problems – the switchover of emergency calls from West Yorkshire will not take place until July 2012.

The communities and local government select committee has now highlighted that the spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, believes the timetable to deliver all the regional centres by 2012 "remains challenging".

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The MPs' report also concluded that "the weaknesses which have beset that programme persist".

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In a scathing wider criticism of the performance of the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), the MPs said it is clear "project management skills are lacking in the department and that this is having a serious effect on the achievement of the department's objectives".

The top official at DCLG admitted to the MPs that "we could have done better". Permanent secretary Peter Housden said part of the problem was due to staff not having the necessary skills and added that there had also been trouble with the technology.

He told the MPs: "We have had world-class suppliers who won these jobs
in competitive tender, who have been unable to deliver a satisfactory product on the timescale which they promised. That has been very frustrating and expensive for us."

Fire Minister and Dewsbury MP Shahid Malik insisted that the regional control rooms are being put to use, even though they are not answering any calls.

He said: "None of the buildings is empty. All the centres have staff based there full-time and they frequently host regional, project and fire and rescue service meetings. They are also being used for developing and testing systems and providing familiarisation and training activities."